


The Voices in the Bubble

by Canadiantardis



Series: Weirdmageddon [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Continuation of In The Bubble, Gen, Sequel, Sorry Not Sorry, Weirdmageddon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-04-30 04:39:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5150564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canadiantardis/pseuds/Canadiantardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She hated the prison, hated the sounds and sights she thought sometimes were so real only to have the prison to laugh at her child-like naiveté, and she absolutely hated the sounds themselves. They tore at her heart every time, and after about three days of constant torment, she felt like she was losing her sanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alone in the Bubble

“Mabel!” A voice shouted distantly, and said girl flinched, cupping her hands over her ears.

She shook her head violently, muttering to herself. “Not real, not real, not real, notrealnotrealnotreal.”

“Mabel! Where are you?” Another, lower voice shouted, but Mabel tried to block out the taunting shouts. She had learned there was no one calling for her, and all her senses were betraying her.

Mabel continued walking in the opposite direction of the shouts, willing them to stop, to let her be alone, but they didn’t. In fact, they got louder and closer.

“Mabel, we found you! Finally.” The voice of Dipper said, but Mabel didn’t turn around, knowing it was just an illusion. She choked back a sob at how mockingly happy the tone was.

“Dude, Mabel, you okay?” Okay, that was a new taunting voice. The prison never used Soos’s voice before. Maybe it was expanding on the people Mabel thought had been nice and important to her.

Something tapped her on the shoulder, and she violently flinched away, squeezing her eyes shut as a sob broke free as she chanted her mantra she had for the past three days. “Notrealnotrealnotreal!”

“Mabel?” The illusion of Wendy’s voice asked, mocking sincerity and Mabel couldn’t handle it anymore and she bolted, blind from tears and breathing hitched from her sobbing.

“Wait, Mabel!” Dipper’s voice called, but Mabel didn’t listen, her ears ringing like they always did after she started to hear the close people to her.

She found herself in the middle of the forest the prison bubble had, and she stumbled to a halt, trying hard to stop her sobbing so she could breathe properly. She fell to her knees against one of the trees, and she huddled in her sweater, fat tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

She hated the prison, hated the sounds and sights she thought sometimes were so real only to have the prison to laugh at her child-like naiveté, and she absolutely hated the sounds themselves. They tore at her heart every time, and after about three days of constant torment, she felt like she was losing her sanity.

She didn’t know how long she had stayed in Sweater Town, but screamed when she felt something grab her shoulders.

“Let go! Letgoletgo!” She screamed, awkwardly stumbling away from the thing, popping her head out of the turtleneck but keeping her eyes shut tight.

“Mabel. Mabel! What’s wrong?” It was Dipper’s voice again this time, and Mabel thought for a second that there was sincere concern, before she remembered the last time she believed that. She still had the bruise on her arm from when she believed Dipper was there to save her, but had only been hit by something that almost broke her right arm.

“Not real!” Mabel cried, refusing to open her eyes, fearful of what she might see – or not see in some cases.

“Mabel, please. Look at me. It’s Dipper, it’s me, I’m here. Mabel, please.” Dipper’s voice went strange, but Mabel just believed it was the prison distorting the words.

“No, not real. Go away! Leave me alone!” Her voice cracked, her head starting to ache from all the stress. “Just leave me alone…”

“Mabel…” She heard more than one voice this time, mockingly concerned, and she covered her ears, trying to block out the words.

Something that felt like a hand gently took her hand and pulled it away, folding their fingers between her own.

“We are real, dude.” Wendy’s voice sounded so real, so nice, that for a split second Mabel thought she wasn’t trapped. “Please, open your eyes.”

_Open those eyes one last time, Mabel. Open your eyes and see the truth that we aren’t here. Face the truth, Mabel, no one’s going to save you._

With a cry Mabel struggled against the hand. The hand tightened.

“Woah, Mabel, Mabel!” Wendy’s voice sounded alarmed. Another hand-like thing went to her face and Mabel screamed, jerking away. “Just open your eyes and you’ll know we’re real!”

She shook her head, dropping her head until her sweater seemed to be suffocating her. She felt like she couldn’t breathe properly, her breaths coming in too quickly and shallowly, making her lightheaded.

“Mabel!” She heard the same multiple voices call to her, as if through a tunnel, and finally, finally, darkness swallowed her vision, falling unconscious.

* * *

 

For once since she first woke up in the prison bubble, Mabel heard nothing besides the sounds of the forest, the leaves rustling in the wind that never seemed to reach her.

Her eyes fluttered open, looking at the strange coloured trees and sky above her, but her heart felt heavy from what had happened before she had passed out.

She sat up, stretching a bit before she frowned, looking at the article of clothing that had fallen off her, as if it had been a blanket. It looked like a long cloak, much larger than she was. She looked around, and saw what looked like Dipper’s vest where she had been laying her head, and she cautiously picked it up, squeezing the puffs as if they would turn into something weird like leaves or a goose, but it didn’t. She brought it to her face, and covered her face, taking a deep breath, and it even smelled like Dipper.

Tears sprung to her eyes, believing the worst. She removed the vest from her face so she wouldn’t wash away the smell of her brother with her tears. She thought maybe Bill had gotten Dipper, and as a way of boasting, had sent her his vest.

She heard the sound of footsteps and she twisted her head, clutching the vest to her chest.

It was Dipper, but without his vest or hat, and he looked absolutely relieved at the fact Mabel was awake. He walked towards her, but when she gave a deer-in-headlights look at him, he stopped, stepping back again.

“Mabel?” He asked, concern evident on his face and in his voice.

“D-Dipper?” Mabel’s eyes searched the boy as if trying to see if he was an illusion or not.

“Oh thank god. Mabel, we’ve found you.” Dipper said, a small smile that looked forced to Mabel, or maybe it was genuine and Mabel had just forgotten what those looked like. “Are you okay? We’ve been looking everywhere for you in Bill’s prison.”

“Are… Ar-are you really… you?” Mabel grabbed a large lock of her brown hair, threading her fingers through it worriedly.

Dipper gave a confused look, stuttering. “I, what, what would make you say that? Of course I’m me. Who else would I be?”

It sounded so much like Dipper, but then again, so did every other Dipper illusion she had seen, and she didn’t know how to believe this one.

“Mabel’s awake!” Mabel jumped with a cry at the shout behind her, and she felt like she almost gave herself whiplash to see who it was.

The other voice had been Soos, and he had his goofy smile on, something Mabel had missed without realizing how badly she had missed it. His shirt looked ratty and dirty, but besides that, he looked as familiar as ever, but instead of being happy, it made her heart clench painfully.

She jumped when a thin figure appeared from behind Soos, clutching Dipper’s vest so tightly she didn’t think she would be able to part with it willingly.

“Mabel, we were so worried about you, dude.” Wendy said, but she looked so different from the last time she had seen her. She looked like she was ready for a big fight, with her hair tied behind a strip of her shirt, her clothes pulled against her body as if to not allow any of her body to get caught on anything. But her face was filled with concern, and Mabel wished this was real.

“R-r-real?” She asked, her voice much smaller than she had ever made it before. She wanted to believe this was different, that they were real, but had very little hope left after giving it up at every time she saw Dipper, Candy or Grenda just disappear or become a stump.

“Yes. We’re real, Mabel.” Wendy said, her arms wide in a way that meant no harm.

Mabel stood shakily, looking to Dipper than to Wendy and Soos, and her heart tightened, her arms hugging Dipper’s vest for some sort of comfort. She wanted to believe it, but she couldn’t tell if she should allow herself to get her hopes again, as if she still had any hope left after the past three days.

“I-” Mabel started, before the voices started again.


	2. Escape from the Bubble

“Mabel, save us! Help us Mabel!”

The voices surprised Mabel, because they sounded just like the three in front of her, but it was like the others couldn’t hear the cries.

“Help! Mabel! We can’t find you!” The voices seemed to surround Mabel, and she covered her ears with her hands, covering her face in the process with Dipper’s vest.

“No…” She managed to say before reverting to her defensive attitude she developed in the bubble, closing her eyes tightly, and trying to ignore the words.

“Mabel? What’s wrong? What?” More voices were added to the ones already shouting around her, and it hurt her skull as the words bounced around her brain as if making it a brain-and-word soup.

“Stop. Stop it, please!” She pleaded, and tears started to form again. She had almost thought she had no more tears to cry, but somehow found herself with wet cheeks.

A new voice sounded distantly, working its way into Mabel’s head until that was the only thing she could think of. “Nothing’s real. They don’t care about you. They’re lying, like all the others.”

And just like that, the voices were gone again, except for the three in front of her.

“Mabel, what just happened?” Dipper’s voice asked, concerned.

She removed her hands from her ears and took away the vest to see in front of her.

“You aren’t real, are you?” Mabel asked, dejected.

“What are you talking about, dude? Of course we’re real.” Wendy said, a frown on her face.

“They all say that.” Mabel replied, now angry. She was tired of being scared, of being worried, of being heartbroken, of the stress no preteen – or anyone, she thought – should have. “You’re all not real! Bill himself said that. You don’t care about me! I’ve been trapped here for what feels like a week, hearing you taunt me and hurt me every minute of the day. You’re all fake!”

Normally when she caught onto the illusions being fake, they would disappear the next time she blinked, but these three stayed in their places, looking alarmed and worried.

“But we’re the real ones, Mabel.” Dipper said gently. “We’re sorry for not saving you sooner, but I had no idea where you were.”

“Likely story.” Mabel laughed, a touch of hysteria mixed in. “Prove you’re the real deals.”

“How? How can we do that?” Dipper asked, halting Mabel’s hysteria for a second as she thought about it.

“Tell me something the illusions haven’t.”

“How would we know what these illusions say? We can’t hear anything.” Wendy put in, her frown deepening.

“Please, Mabel, we don’t have time for this.” Dipper sounded aggravated. “We need to leave and stop Bill. Come on.”

Dipper made the wrong move of trying to grab Mabel’s wrist. Mabel shrieked and swung an arm at him, and a loud _SMACK_ rang through the bubble, temporarily making the other voices silent.

“Don’t…” Mabel warned, stumbling backwards, so she was a safe distance from the three. “Don’t come near me.”

“Mabe…” Dipper held his cheek, his eyes wide with shock.

“Mabel, please.” Wendy cut in, stepping forward, in front of Dipper. “We are real. We came here to save you. Only you and Dip can save Gravity Falls from Bill and his demon friends.”

“Why can’t Dipper go to Ford for help getting rid of Bill?” Mabel spat, not noticing the flinch Dipper made at their Great Uncle’s name. “Seeing as how he’d rather spend the rest of his life with him than with me.”

“Mabel. I.” Dipper started, but Mabel was having none of it, her anger clouding her mind.

“No, shut up. You want to stay here and be his apprentice. You’d rather leave me alone than go back home to Mom and Dad. My friends won’t even be able to come to the party, not like _that_ even matters anyway, seeing as how Bill seemed to be trying to cause the end of the world.” She spat with a dark chuckle, the sound weird to her own ears.

“Dipper?” Wendy turned to the boy.

“I. I.” Dipper stuttered, looking between the girls and Soos before looking at his own feet. “I don’t want to leave you behind, but I don’t want to leave Gravity Falls either. And Uncle Ford was captured by Bill the first day. And Bill burnt the books.”

Mabel heard the words as if through a long tunnel and she frowned. None of the others Dippers had ever said that. They always talked about how Ford was waiting for them outside the bubble or some other nonsense.

“Please, Mabel. Forgive me.” Dipper said, and all the anger left Mabel’s body, leaving her tired all of a sudden.

“But… Aren’t you mad at me?” She asked, her voice small. “I was the one who broke that thing.”

“It’s not your fault you took my backpack. You didn’t know that was in there.” Dipper replied, still not looking at Mabel.

“But I…” Mabel clutched the vest over her heart, squeezing her eyes shut as she confessed. “I gave the thing to the time-traveller guy that Bill took over.”

“Its-wait, what?” Dipper’s voice changed from calm to shocked, and it made Mabel squeeze her eyes tighter, afraid to look any of them in the face.

There was silence before Mabel heard footfalls.

“Wait! Dipper, we don’t have time for this.” Mabel heard Wendy say.

“But, she. She, and now.” Dipper stammered, Mabel imaging the anger he must feel.

“She didn’t know. Dipper stop it.” Wendy said, her voice strained, which made Mabel open her eyes.

She saw Wendy holding Dipper tightly by the arm as he struggled to get closer to Mabel, his face unreadable to his sister, while Soos watched with a frown.

“She…!” Dipper’s voice strained as he continued to struggle away from Wendy to approach his sister, and Mabel still had no idea what he was feeling with his guarded look.

“No, Dipper.” Wendy pulled hard, and Dipper spun around, eyes wide as he almost fell over. “We do _not_ have time for this. Gideon isn’t going to last long, and when those eyebats go back to Bill, you know he’ll be here in a matter of minutes. We have to get out of here. Now. We can talk about this when we escape.”

Wendy looked up at Soos and gave him a look Mabel couldn’t understand, but he nodded and went over to Mabel, holding out his hand, Wendy keeping a hand on Dipper’s arm as she led him away.

“C’mon, Hambone. You can escape now.” He said, his kind eyes meeting her fearful, tearful ones.

She looked between his face and his hand several times before slowly, as slow as molasses, removed a hand from Dipper’s vest and took his hand. She nodded and walked with Soos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found the way I left the one shot to be too cliffhangery, so I wrote a bit more, and it turned into this.  
> One more chapter, so look forward to the ending I have in mind for this story.


	3. Bite the Bubble

They had been walking for what felt like days to Mabel, and more than once she thought they were walking in circles, but whenever she tried to tell the others, they just gave her odd looks and explaining how there was nothing familiar about where they were. It was as if they were seeing something completely different from her. It was too confusing for her to think about for long, so she stopped thinking about it, following Soos’s hand.

Finally they stopped and Mabel looked around to see the bizarre forest seemingly cut off into nothingness, a heavy blankness ahead of them.

“This is it, dudes. Mabel, you’re finally going to be free.” Wendy said, looking back to Mabel with her hand still holding onto Dipper’s arm, even though he seemed to have stopped struggling for a while.

Mabel felt a strange flutter in her chest at the thought of finally leaving the tormenting prison bubble, and her throat tightened.

“Okay, I’m going ahead with Dipper. To make sure we aren’t surrounded. C’mon Dip.” Wendy told the others, tugging gently on Dipper’s arm and they just… disappeared as soon as they stepped into the blankness ahead of them, and Mabel’s eyes went wide.

Soos gave a small smile to Mabel, and she again wondered if it was genuine or not, before tugging gently on her hand. “C’mon dude, let’s ditch this place.”

Mabel tightened her hold on Dipper’s vest and nodded, looking determined at the blankness, walking beside Soos.

But things went wrong as soon as Mabel reached the blankness. Soos passed through just fine, but as soon as Mabel tried to follow, the blankness solidified, only allowing Soos’s hand to pass through, trapping Mabel. She saw the real world as the blankness changed into something like a thick window, large enough for Mabel to see where they had walked out of.

_“NO!”_ A shout so loud it bounced around in Mabel’s head and made her cry out, covering her ears and falling to her knees.

The bubble went blood red and shrunk drastically until it was the size of a human-sized hamster ball. A small slit-like black line appeared over one side of the bubble, until it looked like an eye, before pulling off and bright yellow bricks flew out of nowhere to connect with it, forming an angry triangle with a top hat.

_“OH NO YOU DON’T, SHOOTING STAR.”_ The voice shouted in her head, and Mabel curled up, crying out in pain.

“Mabel! Mabel!” As if through thick walls, Mabel could barely hear Dipper or the others shout her name, pounding on the bubble with all their combined strength.

“Guys…” Mabel lifted her head towards them, reaching a hand out to them before Bill Cipher floated into her face, his eye blood red and angry.

_“YOU’RE NOT GETTING OUT THAT EASY, SHOOTING STAR.”_ Bill thundered, reaching a hand towards her, the pain in her head too much for Mabel to handle as she felt darkness creep upon her. _“I STILL HAVE THINGS TO DO.”_

Mabel felt a stick-like hand pull her hair before she passed out, still hearing the shouts and pounding of her friends distantly.

* * *

 

Mabel opened her eyes slowly, her head feeling like it had been stuffed full of cotton, and she struggled to sit up, her hair falling into her face.

“Ah, Mabel, thought you’d never wake up.” An unpleasantly familiar voice called to her right, but when she turned to look, all she saw was a bright yellow brick in her face. “Up here, sweetheart.”

A large solid black hand lifted her head higher, and Mabel’s eyes widened as she saw a huge Bill Cipher right in front of her face, and she stumbled away, jerking her head out of his grasp. Bill laughed and shrunk in size, hovering a little higher than eye-level to Mabel. He looked very gleeful for a thing that didn’t have anything besides an eye.

“Wh-what happened?” Mabel asked slowly, looking around her. “Wait, where am I? What’s going on?”

“Don’t sweat about it, kid. You’re just passed out in the bubble.” Bill spread his arms in a sweeping motion. “This is all in your head.”

Mabel narrowed her eyes, but refused to look at Bill as she inspected her surroundings. It was a very grey place, as if all the colours were faded from reality. She looked like she was in the forest just out of sight from the Mystery Shack, but the ground was as smooth and flat as plastic.

“What do you want?” Mabel finally asked, her eyes sliding over Bill, refusing to look at him directly.

“Just had to take a precaution since you almost got out of the bubble, Shooting Star.” Bill shrugged. “I can’t let you get out so easily, now can I?”

“What do you want with me? Just let me go!” Mabel cried, shakily standing up.

“No can do, kid. You cause too much trouble for me when you aren’t tied down. Once I catch Pine Tree, maybe I can let you out.” There was a tone in his voice that sent a terrifying chill up Mabel’s spine.

“What would you do if you catch my brother?” Mabel asked, wrapping an arm around herself.

“Hmm, not sure yet.” Bill sounded so nonchalant, but his words scared her worse than anything. “Kill him, possess his body again, maybe lock him up where no one will ever find him.”

“No!” Mabel cried, her eyes wide. “Don’t you dare touch my brother.”

“Oh? And what are you going to do to stop me? You’re trapped, in your own mind and in my bubble that I designed to keep you trapped. How are you going to stop me from getting to your brother, eh, Shooting Star?” Bill laughed, and his body faded, leaving Mabel alone.

* * *

 

Mabel sat up with a start, gasping for air as she looked around herself, but only saw everything as if through bright red lens, before realizing it was the bubble she was still trapped in. She turned quickly all around herself to find what she was looking for when she gasped.

She was high above the forest close to the Mystery Shack, the bottom of the bubble within reach of the tips of the trees, but where there should be trees around her, there was a large hole, as if someone had blown it up. She saw dark stains that she couldn’t tell what they were from her position so high up, but she had a good guess, and when she saw a rock with a wide slash of a dark colour on it, her heart dropped as she knew she was right.

Mabel dropped to her knees, frantically searching with her eyes for something familiar, her hands almost tearing Dipper’s vest in two with worry, until her eyes landed on a discarded green button-up shirt.

“No, no no no…” Mabel whispered to herself, her breathing quickening. “Please, no.”

As she searched, she willed the bubble to move, but it wouldn’t budge, staying high above the forest and the blown up part.

Suddenly, Mabel saw movement at the edge of the crater, and Mabel almost cried in relief to see it was Dipper, although he looked worse for wear. His shirt looked ripped and even dirtier than before, and his hair was even wilder than she had ever seen it. He had marks on his arms, and what looked like many scratches on every part of his visible skin.

She watched as Dipper ran around the crater to the rock with the large stain, and ducked behind it, out of her field of vision. He stayed behind the rock for a long time, before moving away, but this time taking the discarded shirt and running back.

_I need to get out of here._ Mabel thought, as she patted her sweater down, before finding something she had forgotten she had.

Quickly grabbing the grappling hook, Mabel looked around before taking a chance and shooting it at one of the trees close to the rock, more than a little surprised when the hook and line actually passed through the bubble and stuck into the tree, and she pulled until the bubble began moving down, calling to Dipper as she did so.

“Dipper!” She shouted, flinching as the small bubble echoed her voice tenfold, but she ignored the pain in her ears as she reached the ground. “Help!”

“Mabel?” Dipper’s head poked up from the rock with an incredulous look on his face as he saw the bubble and his sister descend to him. “Oh my gosh, Mabel! You’re alive!”

“Dipper, help me get out, please!” Mabel cried, placing a hand on the bubble in Dipper’s direction.

“I-I-I dunno how to help. Bill said only you could get yourself out. You have to figure out a way to get out yourself.” Dipper replied, shaking his head, before his eyes went wide and he ducked back down. “Mabel look out!”

Mabel turned just as something hit her bubble, making her bounce around, disorienting her as she fell over. She looked around at what hit her before crying out in surprise at the pair of teeth with arms and legs, stumble away, shaking its… teeth? – as it did so.

“Woah, was expecting a rock, not… Whatever that was.” The teeth said, feeling around for Mabel’s bubble, but she quickly let it float just above its head. “Huh… Weird.”

Thinking quickly, Mabel shouted down at the teeth, noticing it was mostly blind, using her best Dipper impression. “Hey, ugly! Up here! Come and bite me!”

“Oh? How’d you get up there?” The teeth turned upward as if to look up, before readying their legs and jumped high, falling quickly and opening his mouth wide to take a bite.

The teeth bit down hard on the bubble, cracking the bubble, but it continued to bite down until the bubble popped, Mabel crying out in surprise as she fell.

“ _oof”_ She grunted when she landed on the ground. Actual ground, with actual grass and dirt and bugs.

Mabel was stunned for a moment as her senses were suddenly assaulted with sounds and smells of the real world.

“Mabel!” Dipper shouted, and she felt familiar arms wrap around her and pull her towards a familiar chest as a head found its way to the crook of her shoulder. “Mabel. You’re free.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end!  
> I'm leaving this like this, because for one, I have no idea how I would possibly continue it, and for another, I just wanted to use Mabel's POV about what the bubble could be like.  
> Now, I also left it like this because it leaves questions that you guys can fill in. Remember, this was using only Mabel's Point of View. What happened when she was unconscious? What happened to Bill? How did Mabel's bubble end up close to the Mystery Shack? How did Dipper and the others find her? What was the bubble like for them, if they never saw the same thing she did/what did they see? How are they going to get rid of Teeth, and where are Wendy and Soos? I want to see what you guys think.

**Author's Note:**

> Told ya I'd write more. And this has a bit more to say, so it'll be a bit longer than a one- or two-shot.


End file.
